I was just looking at this, since the starter pack is in the sale (not thinking of spending money just yet), but wondered, is it TRULY free to play? I heard it is definitely pay to win, unless you want a long boring grind to things that should be easily available.How much, roughly, per month would you have to pay to get a decent game out of it, if it IS pay to win?

As someone who has played STO since it was in closed beta back in 2009 it has always had a Shop in it to buy stuff, however, this stuff was mostly customization and even the ships that were sold were not 'over-powered' compared to free ships.

Since STO went Free-to-play, a lot of the new ships and content have required you to purchase them, however you can do this in-game by just playing the game and earning 'dilithium' and exchanging it in-game for 'Zen' points which you use to buy stuff from the in-game store.

This system works pretty well and you are under no obligation to even use it. The items in the store are not unbalanced or give you an unfair advantage to someone who doesn't spend any money. Also, all content in STO is open to all players, so you can play everything without ever spending any money. Most people spend money on the fancy new ship that comes out and you might be tempted to do the same but it's no big deal and it all up to how much you love playing the game.

Give STO a go, it's a pretty good game now, the real game starts at Lvl 50 of course where most of the content has been developed lately with Fleet Starbases, Borg STF's, New Romulus etc but there is also the Foundry which has thousands of user created missions that exceed even Cryptic made missions.

It's a good game and I would not call it pay-2-win, more like pay-2-get fancy stuff that isn't important unless you really want it.

I played right up to the edge of endgame entirely for free. It took me approximately a month and how things were then it was definitely not pay to win. Try it and don't buy this steam starter pack, the only thing useful about it is the xp boost but leveling in the game is quick and easy anyway. The space combat is great!

I have bought the Steam Starter Pack, but solely for the Tier 5 ship, it's heavily discounted so its cheaper than the other ships on the store and better in stats than the other tactical ship I was looking at, the starting items aren't worth it though, you'll be done using them within 2-5 hours of playtime.

You can get all the stuff using in-game currency, is your choice: play for it, or pay for it. I'm a PvP player and i have endgame ships equiped with all end-game gear and never spent a cent in this game, ofc took me a while get all that stuff.

By the definitions of p2w, this game sadly falls in that category. The new term people are now using for p2w is "pay 4 advantage", since people get defensive about p2w. You can get better gear immediately if you put money in, through converting Zen to dilithium. This game is still amazing though!

The answer is moot untill they frickin fix the in-game Zen purchasing!!

"Hi! We are a game company who thinks players buying our product is not helpful to our buisness model. Therefore we will drag our feet and fix it...umm..you know..whenever..."

You sure are one whiny little spambot today. So something broke in a patch, that isn't really unusual and they will fix it. Coding isn't easy, and fixing one thing can break another but little babies like you cry all over forums because the team who did it aren't fixing it "fast enough". This is a free game, play it as such and wait for the fixes.

I'm being a "little cry baby" over the fact I can't throw money at my favorite game and haven't been able to for a week. But my apologies if I have somehow caused you to raise your sword of justice to smite me down in all your superior goodness!